


several rooms away

by warmthjoshler



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Hospitals, Implied Suicide Attempt, M/M, Mental Hospitals, ill add in the notes of each chapter if theres anything else, implied self harm, thats it i believe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-27 00:53:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8381512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warmthjoshler/pseuds/warmthjoshler
Summary: tyler hates other people; josh hates himself





	

**Author's Note:**

> sorry this sucks but ive been ruminating on this idea for quite a while and i finally sorta worked out how i want it to go. also this is Not a songfic i just like the way the title sounds and the run and go has been stuck in my head for like 3 days. also spoilers???? so? anyway i hope you like it and stuff

“tyler.”  


a pause.  


“tyler,” the voice said again. softly. so softly. yellow-pink.  


tyler looked up from the graying wood under his splayed fingers, but he didn’t turn. he stared at the bark of the tree in front of him, watching ants crawl up and down the rough surface.  


“please come down.” not as soft. coaxing.  


tyler shifted his weight onto his backside, letting his knees relax. they ached. he had been crouching with his knees to his chest since…a long time. when he had come out here, the sky had been deep blue, and the yellow-gray creaking of crickets was still scraping his ears.  


what time was it now?  


the sun shone through the leaves and burned tyler’s exposed forearms in strange, negative-space patterns.  


“you haven’t eaten in two days, tyler,” she said with a sigh.  


tyler thought about sighing, and now he wasn’t breathing, and now he had to focus on doing it, and it made him itch. he felt his breath shake. she knew he was listening now.  


he leaned back onto his hands. slowly, deliberately. he turned around to face her. he was high enough up that all he could see was the top of her blond head.  


“thank you,” she said.  


her voice made it sound like she was going to leave, but she kept standing there.  


tyler wanted to clench his teeth, but she would notice, and think something was wrong, so he didn’t.  


instead, he slid himself off the wooden platform and ignored the rungs nailed to the tree trunk, dropping the eight or so feet to the ground.  
when he hit the ground, it stung, shooting from the soles of his feet up to his collarbones. he shuddered and straightened up. he was directly in front of her. he stared at the spot between his mother’s eyes as she stepped toward him. she reached out and hugged him before he could move, and a shock ran through his entire body. he jerked away, silently cursing himself for reacting.  


he was supposed to be _better_. _better_ people didn’t flinch.  


_better_ people also didn’t stop eating for two days straight. _better_ people also didn’t sit out in old ruined treehouses for hours on end. tyler wasn’t thinking about that, though.  


what he was thinking about was the look of determined concern on his mother’s face. she had stepped back, and she was frowning. always frowning. tyler wondered halfheartedly whether her face would get stuck like that. wasn’t that what his parents had always joked about when he was little?  
he couldn’t remember. go figure.  


“tyler.”  


a flash of pink. tyler blinked hard.  


“can you come inside? your dad and i want to talk to you,” she said.  


eight months ago, tyler’s stomach would have dropped at a statement like that. eight months ago, tyler would be pale and shaking at the thought of having a one-on-one conversation with either of his parents. but it wasn’t eight months ago, it was now, and tyler was _better_.  


stiff, he followed his mother inside. followed her into the living room. sat down in the armchair adjacent to the couch where she sat. his father was there, too, tyler noticed.  


he stared at a long scratch on the coffeetable. someone cleared their throat, and a swirl of orange-red swam across tyler’s periphery. he placed a hand on each of his knees and balled them into fists.  


“tyler,” his father said.  


tyler felt his hand twitch.  


“your mother and i were talking.”  


silence.  


“you’ve missed a lot of school lately.”  


they were going to force him to go back to school. that was what this was about. tyler parted his lips to protest, but his mother spoke up before he could say anything.  


“you haven’t been in a week.”  


had it been a week?  


probably.  


“we’ve signed you up for an outpatient program at the facility you stayed at back in september. it starts on monday.”  


tyler’s stomach did drop this time. outpatient programs usually meant other people. also, he wasn’t entirely sure what day it was. he knew it was a school day, because it had to be around noon and he vaguely remembered hearing a school bus earlier, but other than that, he was drawing a complete blank.  


“we pulled you out of school, as well. you won’t have to worry about that anymore. isn’t that nice?” his mother said.  


tyler uncurled one of his fingers and tapped on his knee in time with his heartbeat. but he didn’t say anything.  


he heard his mother sigh.  


“at least we tried,” his father said. “at least he came inside with you this time.”  


tyler stood up and shifted his gaze to the hallway. he let his mouth fall open for a second, deciding whether or not he should speak.  


“can i go?” he asked. his voice cracked, but his tone was flat, and it sounded alien in his head. he hadn’t spoken in—a while. he barely remembered what his voice sounded like.  


“sure, honey. thanks for coming in and talking to us,” his mother said.  


he pinched at the fabric of his sweatpants and walked down the hall to his room without talking again.  


-

  
he spent most of his time in his room. he used to share it with his brother, but then his parents had forced zack to move to a different bedroom because they said tyler would get _better_ quicker if he had a place where he could go to be alone. that was what they had told zack. they didn’t realize that tyler saw the baby monitor, that he heard them talking about how this way it would be easier to watch him and keep him away from anything bad.  


as annoying as that was, considering tyler had been _better_ for four months (technically), it was less annoying than having someone—zack—try to talk to him every five minutes.  


if he didn’t think about the baby monitor, he could almost imagine that he really was _better_. what a dream.  


tyler’s phone was lying screen-up on his nightstand, untouched, because he had no need for a phone. no reason to use one. he didn’t have friends and he didn’t leave the house. not that he minded, but he wondered why his parents were still paying the bill. he didn’t use the phone, didn’t want it, and they knew that.  


he reached over and turned the screen on. it was friday, according to the phone. which meant he had three days—less than three, because it was already noon—to himself. relatively.  


well, maybe not. he didn’t have to go to this outpatient program. there were ways to get out of it. except, those ways would inevitably get him placed into an inpatient program, which was just as bad as—if not worse than—an outpatient one.  


so he had to go. which meant talking to new people, and even more pretending to be better. should he try to enjoy it? was there even anything he could do to make it tolerable?  


would he have to try to make it better? what if he liked it?  


he shook his head. there was no way that could happen. he hated leaving the house. he hated talking to people, especially new ones. hell, he hated people. an outpatient program required both of those things. there was no way he could like something like that.  


tolerate it? maybe.  


but he would never enjoy anything like that. he was sure of it.  


not to mention the fact that he didn’t know how long the program was. would it be an eight week thing, like the inpatient program he’d been a part of? or would it be indefinite?  


were his parents going to make him keep going until he started acting _better_ again?  


he put his face in his hands. what did _better_ people act like?  


they didn’t sit out in old treehouses. they ate. they spoke. they had friends.  


tyler figured he could handle all that—except the friends thing. but—then again—could he use the program to his advantage? make a friend, or pretend to, so that he seemed better to his parents, so that they would stop sending him?  


that was it.  


one friend, tyler promised himself. he would make one friend—or at least pretend to. that would make this whole thing easier.

**Author's Note:**

> yell at me on twitter maybe, @kiilyrmind


End file.
